This invention relates to decorative gift boxes that require no additional wrapping paper, and in particular, to pre-wrapped gift boxes. In the past, many types of boxes or cartons have been made wherein the boxes are stamped out of a sheet of flat material, such as cardboard, to form a blank. The boxes are then creased or scored at appropriate locations and shipped to the end user, where the user folds the blank into the desired carton shape. The boxes can be coloured or printed, but normally they have to be covered with wrapping paper to make them sufficiently attractive to be used for enclosing gifts.
In order to overcome the need to gift wrap a box or carton, attempts have been made to apply wrapping paper directly to the box blank, so that when the blank is folded into the desired box shape, the box is automatically wrapped with the wrapping paper. An example of such a structure is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,479,456 issued to W. H. Arthur. A difficulty with this structure, and in fact most prior art structures of this type, is that they are very fragile and difficult to package and ship without damage. Further, the assembly of these prior art structures still requires a great deal of skill or manual dexterity, with the result that the desired end effect of a pleasing and skillfully wrapped gift is often not achieved.
The present invention provides a box that is sturdy, that can be folded into a flat and compact configuration to facilitate shipping and point of sale marketing without damage, and which easily folds into an attractive and professional looking gift box, with or without pre-wrapping applied to it.